Mixed Race Studies

Beyond the Looking Glass: Exploring Variation between Racial Self-Identification and Interviewer Classification

Population Association of America
2010 Annual Meeting Program
2010-04-17
10 pages

Aliya Saperstein, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Stanford University

Andrew Penner, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

Recent research has demonstrated the existence of fluidity in both racial self-identification and interviewer classification. Racial self-identification has been shown to vary for the same individuals across contexts (Harris and Sim 2002), over time (Doyle and Kao 2007; Hitlin et al. 2006) and depending on their social position (Penner and Saperstein 2008). Similarly, interviewer classifications of the same individuals have been shown to vary over time (Brown et al. 2007), as well as change in response to biographical events such as incarceration, unemployment and experiencing a spell of poverty (Penner and Saperstein 2008). However, the specific pattern of variation between racial self-identification and interviewer classification—i.e., how they might influence each other over time—has yet to be empirically explored.

The prevailing assumption in the literature on racial identity is that people calibrate or edit their self-identification based on how they are perceived by others (e.g., Nagel 1994). We propose to test this hypothesis directly by examining what happens when there is discordance between an individual’s perceived and self-identified race, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. This is a crucial, and up to now missing, piece of the puzzle of whether and how different measures of race relate to one another. Additional analyses will also provide insight into how differences in life chances, such as educational attainment and contact with the criminal justice system, affect how respondents racially identify, are perceived by others and how both change over time.

Read the entire paper here.

Who Is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race

American Sociological Review
Volume 67, Number 4 (2002)
pages 614-627

David R. Harris, Deputy Provost, Vice Provost for Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology
Cornell University

Jeremiah Joseph Sim
Univerisity of Michigan

Patterns of racial classification in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health are examined. The survey’s large sample size and multiple indicators of race permit generalizable claims about patterns and processes of social construction in the racial categorization of adolescents. About 12 percent of youth provide inconsistent responses to nearly identical questions about race, context affects one’s choice of a single-race identity, and nearly all patterns and processes of racial classification depend on which racial groups are involved. The implications of the findings are discussed for users of data on race in general, and for the new census data in particular.

Read or purchase the article here.

The Educational Costs of Being Multiracial: Evidence from a National Survey of Adolescents

PSC Research Report
Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
Report No. 02-521
August 2002
24 pages, 5 tables

David R. Harris, Deputy Provost, Vice Provost for Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology
Cornell University

Justin L. Thomas, Lecturer in Public Policy
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan

There is clear evidence that the number of multiracial children in the U.S. is growing, yet existing research  offers few insights into how outcomes for these children compare to those of their single-racepeers. We address this gap by using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to assess racial differences in education. Specifically, we compare vocabulary scores, grade point averages, and odds of repeating a grade for multiracial and single-race youth. Our findings deviate substantially from the predictions of the marginal man hypothesis, an influential, rarely tested thesis about the consequences of being multiracial. We find that white/black youth have outcomes that are unlike those of blacks, and white/American Indians do not differ from whites, but the situation is more complex for white/Asians. We close by acknowledging that racial classification is a social process, and discussing the implications of racial fluidity for assessments of educational differences.

Read the entire report here.

Mixed Black and White Race and Public Policy

Hypatia
Volume 10, Issue 1 (February 1995)
Pages 120 – 132
Special Issue: Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, Part 1
DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.1995.tb01356.x

Naomi Zack, Professor of Philosophy
University of Oregon

The American folk concept of race assumes the factual existence of races. However, biological science does not furnish empirical support for this assumption. Public policy derived from nineteenth century slave-owning patriarchy is the only foundation of the “one-drop rule” for black and white racial inheritance. In principle, Americans who are both black and white have aright to identify themselves racially. In fact, recent demographic changes and multiracial academic scholarship support this right.

Read or purchase the article here.

The relationship between the ‘racial’ experiences of the ‘half Japanese’ and Japanese identity/racial discourse: The process of ‘othering’

2008
58 pages

Marcia Yumi Lise

People of mixed heritage in Japan, often referred to as Hafu, are often subject to ethnic/racial hurdles in Japan. The distinct Japanese racial thinking and the monoethnic myth affect the ways in which Hafus are considered in Japanese society. It is often difficult for Hafus to be considered ‘ordinary’ Japanese regardless of their Japanese upbringing.

Through a qualitative research methodology, this study sets out to explore and address the issues of ‘othering’ experienced by Hafus in Japan and examine the ways in which Japanese racial thinking affects their position in society and their sense of belonging from the point of view of the Hafus.

Read the entire thesis here.

Our obsession with classification: What are the implications to mixed race studies?

2009-02-11
3 pages

Marcia Yumi Lise

Whether it is by gender, sex, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, age, or nationality, in contemporary society, we are immensely preoccupied by classifying people into categories. Social scientists collect and produce data to utilise it for analysis. We hold passports or identity cards (of some sort), which specify one’s nationality, gender, name, date of birth, place of birth etc. When taking up employment we are asked to fill in an ethnic monitoring form. What’s interesting is that in England for example the Domesday Survey is said to have started nearly 1,000 years ago (The National Archives). Objectification manifests everywhere in our world now.

…What does all this mean to the study of mixed race people and identities? When we speak of mixed race people, we are constantly drawing lines between different ethnicities, races, nationalities, heritages, or cultures to allow us to define “mixed race”. Academics have often stated that ‘mixed race’ people challenge existing classifications based on the aforementioned criterias. For instance, a Japanese and British individual instantly confronts conventional racial/national/ethnic/cultural classification. However we adjust to work in line with and make do with existing classification system. Recall how the concept of ‘race’ is ungrounded however. In this light the objectification of people using the criteria of ‘race’ is misleading…

Read the entire essay here.

Rethinking race at the Students of Color Dinner

University of Buffalo Law Links
University of Buffalo Law School
April 2010

On the day that civil rights icon Benjamin Hooks passed away, UB Law School’s 21st annual Students of Color Dinner took stock of the nation’s state of race relations – and celebrated achievements that transcended race and culture.

The April 15 dinner, held at the Buffalo Niagara Marriott, featured as keynote speaker UB Law Associate Professor Rick Su, who teaches and writes mostly in the areas of immigration and local government law. His remarks looked at the idea of America as a “post-racial society,” and he began with the news that President Obama, the son of a white mother and a Kenyan father, checked a single box on his 2010 Census form, indicating that he was “black, African-American or Negro.”

“Our racial history has always been very complicated,” Su said. “What is interesting is the fact that the Census had choosing to identify as mixed race as an option. Until 2000, the option of selecting mixed race was unavailable…

Read the entire article here.

May Ayim: A Woman in the Margin of German Society

The Florida State University College of Arts and Scienes
Spring Semester, 2005
76 pages

Margaret MacCarroll, Professor of Modern Languages: German Division
Florida State University

A thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

This work explores the life of the Afro-German writer May Ayim by analyzing her writings as well as by discussing the social circumstances in which she lived. Chapter 1 provides a look at the Ayim’s life, with special emphasis on major factors influencing her childhood. The effects of the personal as well as social pressures that Ayim dealt with as a child and young adult are also discussed. Chapter 2 focuses on the history of Afro-German children born shortly after World War II. Chapter 3 includes an explanation of Minor Literature and an examination of May Ayim as an author of such literature. Her importance as such is established. Due to Ayim’s position outside the mainstream of German society, social factors that greatly affected her life as a result of this situation are discussed in Chapter 4. These factors are: identity, culture, and ethnicity. In Chapter 5 Ayim’s attempts to incorporate both the white and black aspects of herself despite the deeply rooted history of racism in Germany are also discussed. Chapter 6 includes an examination of the toll that Ayim’s familial and social experiences played on her feelings of romantic love, especially toward another Afro-German. Chapter 7 examines the exhaustion that Ayim felt toward the end of her life.

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION

1. GROWING UP BLACK IN GERMANY
    Ayim’s Struggle with “Otherness“
    Childhood Pressure
    The White World and Ayim’s Black Father
    Grasping her Africanness
    Desire for Whiteness even in Africa

2. HISTORY OF RACISM IN GERMANY
    Recent History of Racism and Mischlingskinder after World War II

3. MAY AYIM, AUTHOR OF MINOR LITERATURE
    The Afro-German Minority Represented in Ayim’s Poetry

4. THE IDENTITY, CULTURE AND ETHNICITY OF PEOPLE ON THE FRINGES

5. MINOR RACE IN MAJORITY CULTURE
    Racism on the Global Scale
    Incorporating Her White and Black Self

6. MAY AYIM’S LOVE LIFE

7. AYIM’S EXHAUSTION ON THE FRINGE OF SOCIETY

CONCLUSION
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Read the entire thesis here.

Racial Discrimination and Miscegenation: The Experience in Brazil

UN Chronicle
2007 Issues: The Solidarity of Peoples

Edward E. Telles, Professor of Sociology
Princeton University

In 1888, Brazil, with a mostly black and mixed race or mulatto population, was the last country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. During more than 300 years of slavery in the Americas, it was the largest importer of African slaves, bringing in seven times as many African slaves to the country, compared to the United States.

Another important difference was the extent of miscegenation or race mixture, resulting largely from a high sex ratio among its colonial settlers. In contrast to a family-based colonization in North America, Brazil’s Portuguese settlers were primarily male. As a result, they often sought out African, indigenous and mulatto females as mates, and thus miscegenation or race mixture was common. Today, Brazilians often pride themselves on their history of miscegenation and continue to have rates of intermarriage that are far greater than those of the United States.

Miscegenation and intermarriage suggest fluid race relations and, unlike the United States or South Africa, there were no racially-specific laws or policies, such as on segregation or apartheid, throughout the twentieth century. For these reasons, Brazilians thought of their country as a “racial democracy” from as early as the 1930s until recent years. They believed that racism and racial discrimination were minimal or non-existent in Brazilian society in contrast to the other multiracial societies in the world. A relatively narrow view of discrimination previously recognized only explicit manifestations of racism or race-based laws as discriminatory, thus only countries like South Africa and the United States were seen as truly racist. Moreover, there was little formal discussion of race in Brazilian society, while other societies were thought to be obsessed with race and racial difference…

Read the entire article here.

Black Beauty: Aesthetics, Stylization, Politics

Ashgate
March 2009
188 pages
234 x 156 mm
188 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-7546-7145-9
eBook ISBN: ISBN 978-0-7546-9140-2

Shirley Anne Tate, Professor of Sociology
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

Previous work discussing Black beauty has tended to concentrate on Black women’s search for white beauty as a consequence of racialization. Without denying either the continuation of such aesthetics or their enduring power, this book uncovers the cracks in this hegemonic Black beauty.

Drawing on detailed ethnographic research amongst British women of Caribbean heritage, this volume pursues a broad discussion of beauty within the Black diaspora contexts of the Caribbean, the UK, the United States and Latin America through different historical periods to the present day. With a unique exploration of beauty, race and identity politics, the author reveals how Black women themselves speak about, negotiate, inhabit, work on and perform Black beauty. As such, it will appeal not only to sociologists, but anyone working in the fields of race, ethnicity and post-colonial thought, feminism and the sociology of the body.

Table of Contents

Introduction
‘Beauty comes from within’: or does it?
Anti-racist aesthetics in the 21st century: the matter of hair
‘Race’, beauty and melancholia: shade
The shame of beauty is its transformative potential
The ‘browning’, straighteners, and fake tan
Hybrid black beauty?
Conclusion: is it all stylization and is there a need for black beauty citizenship?
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Read the introduction here.

What is beauty?
Writing a book on Black beauty has made me face many challenges. One of these has been unease about knowing just where to start when looking at beauty itself. Should I start with Rastafarianism as a Jamaican or should I start with Ivan Van Sertima’s (1989) Black Women in Antiquity or should I start with the words of Black British women who participated in my research? As you would expect, I suppose, knowing that I am an ethnographer, women’s words are my first port of call. When I asked Ray, a twenty-three-year-old Black ‘mixed race’ British student what Black beauty meant to her she replied:

Black beauty to me is – it’s a tricky question. But I think a really beautiful Black woman or a ‘mixed race’ woman out of them all is the one that has the potential to be stunning. My ideas of Black and beautiful I would say that they originate from my mother’s side of the family also the media probably influenced it. Being at home in Jamaica, what I call home in Jamaica and also even here which has a high Black population and even just within myself as well. Accepting myself as being beautiful I believe was a big step in knowing more about and having ideas on what Black and beautiful are especially from childhood experiences as an example because I grew up in a predominantly white neighbourhood. When I was eleven or twelve I met my best friend and I started to chill with her etc. and go over to Hud and I discovered that my hair, my nose, my lips, my skin colour, everything was actually beautiful and normal if anything above normal standards, normal or better than the norms that I was used to. That is, white straight hair, thin lips you know all that kind of thing, even the colour of the eyes, blue eyes.

With these words Ray orients us to the difficulty of defining once and for all what Black beauty is or could be claimed to be. Instead she points out its complexities when she first says that beauty is about having the potential to be stunning as she makes it clear that beauty is about an appeal to the senses and a judgement is made based on that appeal. For her such judgements have a context in her home in Jamaica, her mother’s family, Black community acknowledgement and acceptance of your beauty, your own acceptance of yourself as beautiful and a continuing uneasy interconnectedness with ideals of white beauty. Black beauty then is lodged in diasporic sociality, sensibilities and processes of transculturation. It is also about racialized aesthetics, the link between the psyche and the social mediated by the surface of the skin and a process of self discovery throughout one’s life…